An Afternoon with Lori Carlson-Hijuelos in conversation with Mirta Ojito

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In A Writing Marriage (Regalo Press; hardcover, May 12, 2026, $30.00), Lori Carlson-Hijuelos captures the fullness of the life and love she shared with her late husband Oscar Hijuelos, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love. Throughout her memoir, Lori offers excerpts from Blue Antiquity, Oscar’s final, unpublished novel, to further illuminate select recollections of their relationship. “My husband’s words are woven together with mine,” Lori writes.

Lori Carlson-Hijuelos is a native of New York State. Born in Jamestown, New York, she received her collegiate education in Ohio and Indiana. Following graduate school, she took an editorial position at the Center for Inter-American Relations, now known as The Americas Society in New York City. There, in 1981, she met her future husband, Oscar Hijuelos, the first Latino to win a Pulitzer Prize in fiction. She began writing full time in 1990, publishing her first book for children, Where Angels Glide at Dawn, with Harper & Row. Among her best-known work is the bilingual poetry anthology Cool Salsa, which is now considered a classic by the American Library Association. Her just-released memoir, A Writing Marriage, celebrates her late husband’s remarkable novels, and their beautiful life together, which was bound by true love, faith, and literature.

Born in Havana, Mirta Ojito is a journalist, professor, and author who has worked at the Miami Herald, El Nuevo Herald, and the New York Times. The recipient of an Emmy for the documentary Harvest of Misery as well as a shared Pulitzer for national reporting in 2001 for a series of articles about race in America for the New York Times, Ojito was an assistant professor of journalism at Columbia University for almost nine years. She is the author of two award-winning nonfiction books: Finding Mañana: A Memoir of a Cuban Exodus and Hunting Season: Immigration and M**der in an All-American Town. Currently, Ojito is a senior director on the NBC News Standards team working at Telemundo Network. Deeper than the Ocean is her debut novel.

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Books & Books, 265 Aragon Avenue, Coral Gables, United States

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